European Evangelicals Call for Inter-Denomination Reconciliation

|TOP|A recent conference of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians (FEET) has concluded with a call for the body of Christ to become reconciled once again.

The conference held at Prague’s International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) brought together 70 theologians from 15 countries to focus on the issue of reconciliation between God and man.

According to Mennonite theologian Johannes Reimer, Professor of Missiology at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, the churches are failing in their calling by God to foster reconciliation in society because of their inability to overcome their differences.

Reimer said at the five-day conference that “holy wars” between Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox believers were taking place in many countries around the world and that even within the evangelical movement itself the desire for reconciliation was weak.

|AD|He also criticised churches in eastern Europe for their lack of social involvement, saying they had withdrawn into a private niche during the Communist era and were now “politically, economically and ecologically voiceless”.

President of FEET and French Baptist theology professor, Henri Blocher, also criticised conservative evangelical theologians for what he called their negligable influence on university theology.

He cited England as the one notable exception to this trend, however, and acknowledged a high number of conservative evangelical theologians who are currently active in numerous further education institutes in the country.

Peter Penner, a lecturer at IBTS, appealed for missions to be taken more seriously in a bid to reconcile the global community in a time of hatred and war.

FEET was established in 1976 by the British theologian John Stott (London). It encompasses 350 theologians from 21 European countries, who convene every second year for a conference.